10 September 2011 11:49 PM

Yasser Arafat’s cruise missiles did their job on 9/11. Just ask Israel

This is Peter Hitchens' Mail on Sunday column

Most people still won’t face what really happened ten years ago today. We still get the standard-issue rubbish about how New York was attacked because ‘Islamists hate our way of life’. And we still get the thought-free incantation that ‘9/11 changed everything’, a vacant slogan used to justify unending, dangerous attacks on our freedom.

This general unwillingness to think got us into the futile war in Afghanistan, and the appallingly costly and bloody and pointless war in Iraq. The pathetic Blair creature, who has learned nothing from his life, wants us to be even stupider, and launch a war in Iran as well.

Perhaps we won’t accept the truth because it is so awkward. It is certainly awkward for me, as I’ll explain. But before I go any further here, let me dispel any idea that the Manhattan massacre was connived at by the US authorities. This is obscene, baseless drivel, grossly disrespectful to the innocent dead and in defiance of a huge body of knowledge. Those who spout it should be subjected to cold contempt.

And I must here very strongly recommend the superb new account of the outrage, The Eleventh Day, by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan, a wholly absorbing and powerful narrative full of good sense, properly weighed facts and clear understanding.

It deals with many important points. There’s the bungling of the security services, pretty much standard in these over-rated organisations. It is to cover their blushes that a million pairs of tweezers have been pointlessly confiscated by boot-faced airport security guards.

There’s the creepy suppression of 28 pages of the US Congress’s inquiry report into 9/11, believed to endanger Washington’s very special relationship with Saudi Arabia.

But most impressive is their description of how and why the official 9/11 Commission deliberately ducked the issue of what motivated the murderers. ‘All the evidence,’ the authors correctly say, ‘indicates that Palestine was the factor that united the conspirators.’

They were striking at America’s alliance with Israel. The hijacked planes, as I wrote on this page ten years ago, were Yasser Arafat’s cruise missiles.

That is why news of the New York murders led to grisly demonstrations of joy and triumph across the Middle East, film of which was quickly suppressed by the Palestinian movement for fear of a wave of American rage directed against them. And it worked. American wrath and thunderbolts fell on Afghanistan and Iraq, not on Gaza or Ramallah, let alone on Saudi Arabia, where most of the murderers came from.

Within weeks, George W. Bush had reversed a long-standing policy and come out in favour of a Palestinian state.

This interpretation doesn’t suit me personally at all. It scares me stiff. I stick to it because I cannot avoid the fact that it is true. I believe it is the duty of the civilised West, having created the state of Israel, to defend its integrity and independence against irrational hatred and murderous threats. I believe this in spite of the fact that Israel has done, and continues to do, many wicked things.

I believe also that the West is deeply unwilling to face facts about this. It repeatedly pursues a policy of forcing Israel to give up territory in return for unenforceable promises of peace. This sort of negotiation was last used by Neville Chamberlain towards Hitler over Czechoslovakia. It failed, and is universally reviled as ‘Appeasement’. Yet now it is called ‘Land for Peace’, and applauded.

The Muslim world has never properly acknowledged Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign Jewish state. We have never asked it to because we thought we could buy peace with concessions. Israel is already so small it will eventually disappear completely if we carry on buying peace with slices of land.

As long as the Arab and Muslim world refuse to accept Israel’s existence, we are ensuring horrible misery in the future – either in the Middle East, or here, or in the USA – or all three. In the coming decade we are going to have to choose between pressing, with all the courtesy and force at our command, for a genuine, permanent recognition of Israel, or accepting a weak process of appeasement interrupted by who knows what horrors. Even though we all know how appeasement ends, I think it is what we have chosen. That is why we hide the truth from ourselves today and every day.

Smiley’s life is best told by the book

The BBC version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was so good it made me get a TV, after years of not having one in my home. Yet when I watched it again a few years ago I found it oddly slow and quiet, not as thrilling as the first time round. I had changed completely in the 25 years between, as we all have.

This is because I am used to more and more of my thinking and feeling being done for me by the TV or the cinema, thanks to music, special effects and fast, clever editing.

I’ll be interested to see how the new film version compares, but in the end they can’t beat the book, drawn from life by a wonderful observer. Unlike the TV series, which starred Alec Guinness as Smiley, it gets better every time.

A Government of adolescents

David Cameron's smirking humiliation of Nadine Dorries in Parliament on Wednesday looked planned and deliberate to me. It was a straightforward piece of crude male-chauvinist bullying, more than a little bit smutty. But because Mr Cameron is viewed by the feminist sisterhood as friendly to the unrestricted abortion they all love, while Mrs Dorries is hostile to it, the women’s movement has not come to her aid.

Mr Cameron’s bodyguard of media flatterers also let him get away with this teenage stuff, not worthy of a man in such a responsible and serious job. And they have given a similar free pass to the Chancellor, George Osborne, for a gross and inept jest at a magazine awards ceremony.

It is impossible to imagine any previous Chancellor making such a stupid public mistake. We have a Government of adolescents, and an adolescent media to sustain and support them. But the world is still a grown-up place. What must the Chinese think?

**************Somehow we’re being sold the idea that the Blair-Brown regime sucked up to Colonel Gaddafi, but our current Government kept their distance. This is false. Archives reveal that the ‘Minister for Africa’, Henry Bellingham slurped up to the Colonel (referring to him as ‘Brother Leader’) at an EU-Africa Summit in Tripoli on November 30, 2010. A few weeks before, another Minister, Alastair Burt, told the Libyan British Business Council that Libya had ‘turned a corner’ which ‘has paved the way for us to begin working together again’.

**************If we are going to abandon our Christian heritage completely, and abolish the daily act of public worship in schools, shouldn’t Parliament at least debate it and repeal the law? And shouldn’t the Church of England, which handed over many schools to the state in return for this provision, complain?

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Posted by: Mark Jones 16 September 2011 at 11:07 AM.

"In my considered opinion, if we do not prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, they will nuke first Israel, then the UK and USA. President Mad has openly said he will!!".

I don't understand how. If they did develop a nuclear weapon it probably wouldn't be a very powerful one. I suppose there's a slight chance they might deliver it to Israel but, in the aftermath, they would be annihilated by the US. As to an attack on the USA and UK, they would need to develop ICBMs as well or something like a B52 bomber which would have to avoid radar whilst traversing numerous air spaces and for what purpose? If they could do it, they might, at best, take out one or two American cities which would be responded to by a retaliation which would destroy them.

@mikebarnes - you state that "the second or third world can only win if we continue to allow immigration of any kind." So presumably, you're against all immigration? Do correct me if I've picked you up wrong. If not, what is your position on emigration? Do you believe that British people should not be allowed to emigrate?

Posted by Mark Jones
First they will nuke Israel, then the UK, and USA. The they being ,as Littlejohn describes him President of Iran I'm a dinner jacket. This being Marks considered opinion.
Well sir, bang bang we are all dead. A tad simplistic,so if I can be so bold.
My considered opinion is this. If the USA have satellites that can read your number plate . I'd hazzard a guess, it can and does have the capability to know where all nuclear devices situated at groung level .
And unless Iran dig a tunnel to the UK as they have no delivery capabilities then once that bomb gets put on a truck .The Spooks will know. AsI speak unmanned drones fly high allittude sorte.s USA owned, Israels for interest
I think as mad presidents go .Iran does not own that right exclusively . Throughout the cold war .The Soviets and the USA faced each other off. But never went that extra yard. with pretty mad guys on both sides.
Maybe one day world war three will happen. Scarce oil, the cause, or food shortages. But the second or third world can only win if we continue to allow immigration of any kind . Not by technical weaponry.
The first dirty bomb that gets through despite satellite technology. will wake the west up out of their slumber .Of that I'm sure. And If it came from Iran .Then Iran would be no more.

"I would also recommend checking out Charlie Skelton's news blog in the Guardian last week which reported on a symposium of critical thinkers in New York, including a former CIA analyst and a former Naval officer and NSA operative.".

@ Ian Vallance .
Sir youi are correct or at least half so . The charactor is indeed Frazer. I appologise. The Shoe was of course correct Doc Marten .Doc Martin being the Matin Clunes character in the nice Cornish adventure set in Port Issac. No need for you to appologise. I'm big enough to recieve.
And indeed most of whal you say is agreeable. Surely then creating a need for you to re-assess your politics.

Mr Hitchens, I would recommend watching the 12 September MSNBC interview with Anthony Summers on the Dylan Rattigan Show. It is entitled "What the US knew about the 9/11 hijackers" and highlights the Saudi connection and the subsequent cover-up.

The last time I looked it seemed that the Israeli Defense Force still has a mass of state of the art kit much of it manufactured in Israel itself.There is is also compulsory military service for all citizens both male and female over the age of 18 ,literally a nation in arms when necessary.Plus of course the undeclared nuclear arsenal estimated at about 500 warheads.These are facts which a lot of people do not like and would try to dispute or pretend are somehow not that decisive or important. They are facts nonetheless.

There can be no doubt about the truth of what Mr Hitchens says concerning the significance of the Arab-Israeli conflict and of the USA's stance on it, but what does he make of the fact that KSM and Bin Laden did both admit responsibility for 9/11? Bin Laden waited until 2004 before admitting responsibility? Why would he do this?

Regarding the US government "actively ignoring warnings" I would suggest that the recent story "that Richard Clarke, who was the White House counter-terrorism czar at the time of the attacks, has recently accused the CIA of deliberately suppressing information before 9/11, information that might have prevented the attacks." adds weight to it.

I would also recommend checking out Charlie Skelton's news blog in the Guardian last week which reported on a symposium of critical thinkers in New York, including a former CIA analyst and a former Naval officer and NSA operative.

further to my comment, id just like to also point out that it is a myth that the 9/11 report doesnt mention Israel/Palestine. On page 147 it quite clearly states that Khaled Sheik Mohameds animus towards the US stemmed from the US' support of Israel and also on page 154 KSM had originally planned to board a grounded plane himself and deliver a speech excoriating US support for Israel

not sure what to make of that reply. Yes i think that the decision of policy change towards Palestine would have been made and that the 9/11 attacks actually hindered it for a while. You say that no one said in public that palestine was a factor, well a US agent called James Fitzgerald stated it in public to the 9/11 commission in direct response to a question from Lee Hamilton. It didnt make the 9/11 report as you say, but its still on record. Now by focusing on the Palestine question the US would have had to ignore Bin Ladens other articles from his charge sheet against the west and also how would the US public have responded to the Palestinians trying to have a veto over American foreign policy? Now that would really have put the stops on a policy the administration were intent on pursuing. The difference between us Peter is that you say 9/11 changed US policy towards Palestine. Im saying no, it was on the cards BEFORE 9/11.

It is absurd to sneer generically at "conspiracy theorists" while simultaneously engaging in conspiracy theories oneself. Some conspiracy theories may be fanciful and some may be true, or at least close to the mark. Barely a day goes by without both the left and right corporate media retailing conspiracy theories about Saudi Arabia, Gaddafi, Mugabe, Ahmadinejad, Assad et al, whilst simultaneously using the term "conspiracy theorist" to marginalise and ridicule those who doubt some or all aspects of the officiall 9/11 story. It is no way disrespectful to the memories of the 9/11 victims to express doubts about the official 9/11 story any more than it is disrespectful to the memory of Iraq War casualties to question the legitimacy of that war. To argue otherwise is to engage in moral and emotional bullying. By the way many 9/11 sceptics, such as the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, take very great care not to express any view, or even speculate, as to who or what was responsible for 9/11. They simply argue that the official conspiracy theory (which is what it is) is inherently impossible. Thus, contrary to the corporate media canard, they are in this instance anti-conspiracy theorists.

I agree with your assessment of the Israel problem. I disagree with your recipe for solution. Israel only continues to exist because it is like a naughty child with a very indulgent parent, that continually furnishes it with large amounts of foreign aid, and weapons that are far in advance of anything the Palestinians can muster.

In addition,the U.S.A will defend Israel's actions, however ghastly, on the international stage. viz the last incursion into Gaza after less than 15 Israeli deaths, they killed 1300 people and demolished large numbers of buildings, behaviour more reminscent of their neighbour President Assad. The Israelis need to beware that Israel has no strategic interest for the U.S.A, Egypt Iraq Saudi Arabia and Iran are far more important. The American people may begin to realise this and start to turn a deaf ear to the rich and articulate Jews in congress. Furthermore democratic governments in arab countries may be forced by their electors to to adopt a less tolerant attitude towards Israel, which in itself may influence US government policy. In the final analysis American interests will come before Israel's. I think Israel should settle now while the going is good, it may not last forever.

Mr Search raises an interesting point about the process through which George W.Bush began to *consider* support for a 'Palestinian' state. The absolutely fascinating and astonishingly furious letter which he received from the Saudi King a very short time before the 11th September attacks is indeed very important - and please note that it was almost exclusively devoted to the subject of American support for Israel. Likewise the enraged treatment of Israeli ( and American) delegates to the UN conference on 'racism' at Durban, which immediately preceded the 11th September.

But would that decision (in normal times a very tricky one for which the American nation and Congress would have had to be very carefully prepared) have been made with such speed and with so little fuss in other circumstances? Indeed, would it have in fact have been made at all?

The anti-Israel lobby go on endlessly about America's special relationship with Israel. They spend a lot less time examining its even more special relationship with Saudi Arabia. In my view the Bush administration inclined much more towards Riyadh than towards Jerusalem. That can also be said of the previous Buish administration, which sought to humble Israel at the Madrid conference.

The reason for the September 11 attacks was (as is obvious to anyone who knows the region) primarily Arab and Muslim fury at the USA's alliance with Israel (the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia, also ended by George W.Bush, was a secondary but significant reason stated by those involved).

However, *and this is crucial* it has never, to my knowledge, been referred to as the reason for the attacks by any major US political figure, nor by the 9/11 Commission (for reasons explored by the authors of 'the 11th Day' and noted by me). That is why I make such a production out of pointing this out, something I am criticised for elsewhere.

The official explanation, adopted by the entire neo-conservative and liberal interventionist choir, has always been that the attack was motivated by 'Hatred for Our Way of Life'. 'Islamism' etc, and that it was the work of a specific organisation called 'Al Qaeda' with these priorities. One effect of this has been the swelling of 'Al Qaeda' from a nebulous concept into a vast bogey overshadowing the entire world, whose hand was seen behind every terrrorist act . This is obviously misleading, but is still clung to by many people who ought to know better. Why? Because the alternative (and correct) explanation has such worrying diploimatic and political consequences for so many people and countries.

This explanation suited the neo-cons and liberal interventionists who wished to make anti-Islamic points by attacking the Taleban in Afghanistan( almost wholly irrelevant to the issue) and who wished to spread 'democracy' to the Middle East by attacking Iraq.

It suited Saudi Arabia, from whose shores most of the murderers had come (and whose other connections with the 11th September are, I believe, explored in the 28 censored pages from the Congressional report on 9/11) .

And it suited the Palestinian movement, which initially badly underestimated the wounded fury of the people (as opposed to the government) of the USA. Had the American people identified the Manhattan massacre with the 'Palestinian' cause, there would never again have been any chance of a US intervention on behalf of their cause in world diplomacy. This is another reason why the US government might not have wanted to stress the 'Palestinian' aspect of the matter. It wanted to be free to negotiate more 'Land for Peace' deals with the PA.

It also appeared to suit supporters of the US-Israel alliance, who thought that the USA would abandon its support for them if it became clear that this was the price America would now pay for that support. My own view is that this was a short-sighted mistake. That is why I say what I say.

So the World International Court deems illegal occupiers have no rights. In England tell that to squatters and the Irish Travelling communities.
In real politics the illegal occupiers spoken of are in the most aggessive armies of expansionist regimes. And the reality is, they have all the rights they need or want . The occupied are lucky if they have any rights at all.
So in that respect .This court is an ass. Primarily ,as it was set up by the expansionist regimes in the first instance.

My use of the word ‘make-over’ was intentionally flippant. ‘Transformation’ might be more appropriate.

Yes, Christianity has evolved – to accommodate other values, secular ones. This is my point: much of what most of us would regard as fundamental to a decent, ethical society – democracy, liberty, some measure of equality –doesn’t stem from Christianity. So the suggestion that morality can’t exist without religion is baseless.

Re. assisted dying, a British Social Attitudes survey in 2005 which asked ‘About assisted dying, that is, when a person ends the life of another person at their request. How much do you agree or disagree that … it is better that people are allowed to die when they want rather than having to stay alive against their wishes?’ found that 63.13% agreed or agreed strongly, compared with 13.19% who disagreed or disagreed strongly.

Ethical change, the sort I’m proposing, certainly isn’t just change according to arbitrary fashion. If we have in mind some goal or principle – to increase happiness, say, or to preserve liberty (this is what I mean by shared values) – then certain things are clearly more conducive to this goal or principle than others.

My charge of laziness is based on the fact that religious people evidently do cherry-pick to suit their pre-existent beliefs. For example, Christians who use scripture to argue against gay marriage conveniently overlook those passages that call for gay people to be killed, along with adulterers, unruly children and people who collect sticks on the Sabbath.

Change is necessary – or, at least, challenging our ethical norms is necessary – otherwise we become morally complacent, and this can lead us to neglect pressing issues that should weigh heavily on our conscience.

I don’t think that existentialism is the logical conclusion of atheism. This is to neglect a rich history of moral philosophy and spirituality which, even if tied to a particular religion, needn’t be. It depends on your idea of spirituality, of course, but a sense of the transcendent is certainly open to atheists, even if our explanation of it is slightly different from the theist’s.

This is from the historycommons website and proves that the Bush administrations policy was changing BEFORE 9/11.

"September 6, 2001: US Considers More Favorable Policy Towards Palestinians; But Change Is Halted by 9/11 Attacks According to a New York Times article several days later, on this day President Bush holds a National Security Council meeting with Secretary of State Powell, National Security Adviser Rice, and others, to consider how to change his Middle East policy. This potential change in US policy comes after the Saudis threatened to end their alliance with the US because of US policy towards Israel and Palestine (see August 27, 2001 and August 29-September 6, 2001). It is reported that he is considering meeting with Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat when Arafat is scheduled to come to New York for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly two weeks later. Bush has so far been firm in refusing to meet with Arafat. According to the New York Times, at this meeting, “Bush discussed the wisdom of changing tack, officials said. While no clear decision was made, there was an inclination to go ahead with a meeting with Arafat if events unfolded in a more favorable way in the next 10 days or so…” Additionally, it is reported that Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres will meet with Arafat in mid-September, in what it is hoped will be “the first of a series that could start a process of serious dialogue” between Palestine and Israel. [New York Times, 9/9/2001] Reporter Bob Woodward will add in 2006, “Bush agreed to come out publicly for a Palestinian state. A big rollout was planned for the week of September 10, 2001.” [Woodward, 2006, pp. 77] But after the 9/11 attacks a few days later, Bush and Peres do not go forward with any meetings with Arafat and US policy does not change. The Nation will later comment, “In the aftermath of [9/11], few people recalled that for a brief moment in the late summer of 2001, the Bush Administration had considered meeting with Arafat and deepening its political involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” [Nation, 7/14/2005]"

We get the standard-issue rubbish about Israeli history from "Steven".

If UN endorsement decides the legality of states (as the Israelis who selectively use the 1947 Partition argue) then you must agree Israel's occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem is utterly, and completely, illegal.

Since WW2 and the Geneva Conventions, territory seized by war is inadmissible under international law, as UN 242 specifically declared.

Since the highest legal authority in the world, the International Court of Justice, unanimously ruled in 2004 that israel's occupation is in violation of international law, its settlements in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and its annexation wall, similarly a violation of the right to free movement, private property, education, water and basic amenities, since it cuts the Palestinians of from large amounts of their own privately-owned land, schools, all their primary water sources, and impedes their free movement.

Occupiers don't have rights, they have responsibilities to the occupied. Responsibilities not to deny them basic rights to housing, protections under law, free movement, democracy etc. Israel denies the Palestinians all of these rights through mass home demolitions and an apartheid system which discriminates in favour of settlers in housing permits, legal protections and access to amenities and free movement. And Israel breaches humanitarian law through using home demolitions as collective punishment of civilians and breaches the 4th Geneva Convention by transferring its population onto territory seized by war.

Yet the only "rights" Mr Hitchens speaks of, are the rights of the occupier? Not the righs of the impoverished, oppressed and occupied?

And he compares efforts to give self-determination within the Green Line to the Palestinian peoples, (the largest stateless peoples apart from the Kurds, victims of slow-motion dispossession from their land ever since 1947) self-determination within the Green Line to attempts to appease Hitler's Third Reich??

[i] green-line / 1948 israel is less than 20% of traditional, historic palestine. palestine includes all of israel, jordan, and the west bank. israel alone is about 17% of that.

[ii] only a suilly person would claim iisrael has the "5th largest military in the world".

with only 7 million people in the whole country this claim is silly. in the middle east alone larger militaries are held by egypt, turkey, and iran. is israel's military larger than canada, the US, GB, france, russia, poland, australia, china, venezuela, etc ?

what could explain these nutty claims about israel ? a map and an ounce of common sense couls easily dispel this nonsense but these silly claims live on. dare we call it by its true name : racist stereotyping of jews ? :

Response to Joshua Wooderson,
'We', I'd imagine, would be society as a whole. This doesn't apply just to schools, of course. All areas of society should be subject to a humanistic make-over, a process that I believe has been going on for centuries anyway."

Would that be the Sixty Minute Makeover or do you have a Grand Design in mind? Sorry if this sounds as if I'm ridiculing you but if you will use shallow words like 'makeover' to discuss deep issues . . .

"Over the years, Christian ethics have been supplanted by and added to other values, such as the primarily Enlightenment values of democracy and liberty. It's nonsense to imagine that only Christian values make up the current moral zeitgeist; to give just one example, most people are in favour of assisted dying, an unequivocal vote for quality of life over sanctity of life."

Yes, without losing its core beliefs, Christianity has evolved over the centuries just as you suggest. Doesn't that very ability to transform itself and respond over time to a changing world contradict your charge of stultifying moral absolutism? By the way, despite the BBC's relentless pro-euthanasia propaganda I wasn't aware that most people supported it yet, would be grateful to see the evidence for this.

"Challenging those remaining strands of Christianity in our ethical thinking is, then, simply a continuation of what we've been doing for a long time. What we replace them with will depend on which arguments win out, who wins the moral debate, a debate conducted with certain shared values and presuppositions on all sides."

If that's the case then presumably then they will change with each new fashion season like hemlines, which was the central point of my original post. I can't pretend to know what on earth the airy phrase "certain shared values and pre-suppositions on all sides" actually refers to.

"If this all sounds rather vague and idealistic, that's because it is. But this change is inevitable, and the lazy assumption that religion makes morality clear-cut and objective becomes more and more patently nonsense, as religions adjust their beliefs to fit with the prevailing moral climate - cherry-picking, as it might well be called."

No it doesn't sound vague and idealistic, it sounds vague and naive. And I don't think your charge of laziness has any basis.

"Furthermore, this change is necessary. Moral absolutism, backed up by divine mandate, is stultifying and harmful. And this change might very well be spiritual. Spirituality and religion are entirely distinct."

Change is inevitable, that doesn't mean that this change is necessary. I would certainly agree that spirituality and religion aren't exact synonyms but they aren't ENTIRELY distinct either. In fact, in modern usage the word 'spiritual' is rapidly becoming the favourite euphemism for 'religion' amongst people who like to reject the idea of organised religion, but can't quite face up to the cold, emptiness of existentialism.

The review is entitled "Review: Terrorism: The Eleventh Day by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan". It was in the Irish Independent on 10 September.

I only referred to the review because Mr Hitchens raised the issue of the book. And I referred to that particular quote because I believe it highlights the actions of the US Government - "actively ignored" means to take specific action to deliberately ignore something. It clearly does not mean "to be ignorant of something" or "to not take the time to look at something".

Of course, there is a lot more facts and unanswered questions out there. I would certainly recommend checking out the "Remember Building 7" campaign, which is co-sponsored by hundreds of 9/11 families and over 1550 architects and engineers. It is worth checking out especially as "Building 7’s collapse was not mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report".

I am sickened every time the 'conspiracy' theory about what we call '9/11' is speculated upon.
It makes for a good book that probably sells well.
What Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and maybe the Homeland Security were likely guilty of was complacency in that America is impregnable and nobody can hit us.

Lydia, 11 Sep. 10:26pm, what a hateful post, repleat with ‘…Arabs have a God given right’. Do they indeed?

You seem to subscribe to the might is right mantra and your probably correct about the outcome when, as you say, ‘1 Billion Muslims’ against ‘6 million Jewish squatters’ (… where did I last hear that particular statistic in regard to the Jews?).

On a practical point - you make comparison with South Africa. But even with world-wide sanctions, the SA economy was able to carry on for years. And It could have continued for many more (sanction busting and all). SA chose a negotiated peace, something which is not on offer in the middle-east. And military action, including use of nuclear weapons, against a foreign aggressor, is the other key difference you fail to address. It will probably all end in tears, but as you seem keen to point out, if we could simply ‘reduce’ both ‘sides’ by 6 million, at least there will be 994 million Muslims left...

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